Progress!

Mayor Hussa and Sgt. Donnelly
Originally uploaded by brendan61

Who You Are Looking At: Denville Mayor Ted Hussa and Sgt. Brian Donnelly of the Denville PD

What You Are Looking At: The start of the first Denville Town Bike Ride.

Why it is Significant: It is a mile post in our effort to make Denville a cycling friendly community.

Three years ago while Cathy and I were on a ride through Fayson Lakes a jerk in a car almost ran me down in an intersection and then tried to push me with his car because he was angry. In my years of riding I had become use to this kind of stuff and although I was pretty angry I would have just let it go and moved on. Cathy was not so willing to leave it at that and decided that we would have to do something. Three years later with two Washington bike Summits under our belts and a lot of talking with people and hard lobbying for our bicycle friendly agenda we are finally making some progress.

Last night we participated in Denville's family bike night. After the kid's safety rodeo we all went on the inaugural bike ride. The Mayor, who credits Cathy with getting him fired up for this work, has gotten the DOT to help improve roads and put up "Share the Road" and "Bike Route" signage around town. The Police are working harder on traffic enforcement and recently we got the town hooked up with some bike racks for parking down town. I know it may not seem like much but it takes a lot of cooperation to make this stuff happen. I think we are now ready to officially apply to the League of American Bicyclists to get our "Bike Friendly Community" designation. Very cool stuff!

Check out the photos by clicking on the picture above.